Brother Donald Mouton passed away on Sunday, April 18th. During the 1980s he was the president of the College of Santa Fe. Brother Mouton was also my professor at CSF in 1975. I took his course on the Old Testament at eight in the morning on Tuesday and Thursday. It could have been the subject matter, or the early hour, but I usually slept through Brother Don’s class. He never held that against me and throughout the years we remained friends. Santa Fe’s Christian Brothers have a special place in my heart and family. My Uncle Danny, who was mother’s eldest sibling, was a Christian Brother. He left for the seminary when he was fourteen and spent the next 75 years in the religious order. Brother Julius, as he was known, was the founding president of Las Salle College in Manila in the Philippines. My cousin Steve Armenta was also a Christian Brother, he spent many years in Central America teaching children in Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Legacy of the Christian Brothers in Santa Fe
In 1859 Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy brought the De La Salle Christian brothers to Santa Fe, where they founded St. Michael’s High School. The bishop was named in honor of St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, whose Catholic feast day is celebrated on April 7th. De La Salle was the founder of the order who was born in France during the 17th century. As a young man he worked tirelessly to ensure that poor children received an education during a time when only the wealthy were educated. He founded a training college for teachers and schools for languages, art, and science. Today, there are De La Salle schools in 80 countries. In 1969, Loretto Academy and St. Michael’s High School merged, becoming Santa Fe’s only Catholic high school